By Balford Henry, News EditorDR. OMER Thomas, a candidate for the presidency of the Jamaica Agricultural Society, says the performance of the agricultural sector was not encouraging and the wider society must step in to provide leadership and direction.
The executive director of the Jamaica Bureau of Standards, Dr. Thomas, who will be vying for the top position in the July 9 presidential election, made the observations as he launched his campaign on Friday at the Hilton Kingston Hotel, New Kingston.
He said the JAS, which is more than 100 years old, was a prestigious organisation, "badly in need of new ideas and strategies that will take it forward. And this can only be achieved through effective leadership ..."
Dr. Thomas said that "for too long the JAS has been perceived as a group of disorganised and disgruntled farmers. It is time to bring back credibility and respectability to the JAS. This we can achieve with effective leadership."
He said the JAS should be able to rise to the occasion, without political bias, "because you and I know too well that partisan organisations cannot effectively represent the interests of farmers when it comes to lobbying Government for proper infrastructure such as roads, irrigation system, marketing system, tillage system for farmers and also a system on which we can rely for an extension service.
"This is a time when the JAS needs to put itself out there, as the lobby group for farmers, to ensure that Government acts on issues affecting us," he added.
Dr. Thomas said the Society also had to invest in the future by investing in young and aspiring farmers. "We must invest in them. Stronger links must be established between the agricultural schools and colleges," said the Bureau's executive director.
According to him, in 2001 the number of farmers in Jamaica was nearly 180,000, about 44 per cent of whom were more than 50 years old as young agriculturists were being turned off from contributing to the JAS because of the negative perceptions of the organisation.
He said that according to the Planning Institute of Jamaica's agricultural production index, there was a drastic decline in agricultural production, as well as a decline in exports between 1996 and 2001.
Dr. Thomas said there was a time when local farmers felt safe about the local market but that was not so anymore. "In 2001, the value of imported foods was a whopping US$269 million, in comparison to the meagre US$152 million in agricultural export," he said. "So clearly, we are consuming more foreign food than local food. We only think about food security when there are international problems looming."
